So... I wanna have a random cameo in a tabletop game from velociraptors. Anatomically correct velociraptors who are less than half a dude's height, weigh less than forty pounds, and covered in feathers. Of course, the entirety of their threat comes from their numbers and pack tactics, unlike in Jurassic Park.

But anyway, I want to make them even more deceptively dangerous by giving their feathers and hides coloration like songbirds. I know that herd animals like zebras can use their crazy coloration to confuse predators, but can the predators themselves take advantage of bright plumage in some way?

>>40513905In avians, bright plumage is generally just for attracting mates and/or distracting predators from females. A significant amount of plumage on their arms could possibly allow for them to control their leaps through the air or steer. This is of course in addition to all the nastiness modern raptors like hawks have such as monstrously powerful grip strength in their feets.

>>40513905>unlike in Jurassic Park.Those were about the size of Utahraptors, weren't they? I always figured some wires got crossed somewhere, since one of the books, I think mentions that they're too big to be Velociraptors.

>>40513905sub-sapient, unarmed kobolds are not going to inspire fear no matter their plumage. They probably wouldn't even be able to chew through thick clothing, nor would they probably even want to go after human-sized prey. You could just punt them, or pick them up by those tail feathers and hurl them. And that's not even considering the possibility that some of these PCs have fireballs.

>>40514222It's hard to tell. That screen shot is from 3. In 1, they weren't shown too often full body except when chasing the kids. It's probably a result of technology from JP1's era. Wasn't it all animatronics then? And in possession of more horror elements?

The only dinosaur we really got a good look at was that one who ate the fat guy. And even that one we didn't see move all too much.

>>40514250>In JW they seem bigger dunno why.Didn't JW have that (really, really retarded) thing where the park was losing money so so they just spliced dinosaur genes together (because that's totally a thing you can do) to make "super-dinosaurs"?

Imagine the fellows in his picture, brightly colored, swarming in a pack towards an adventuring party that just discovered a pathway to the Inner World. Not scaled, feathered; not big enough to outweigh a human, but big enough that a running jump might knock the knight over; not as obviously as dangerous, but in hindsight, making his players realize 'How did we survive that?'

>>40515298You can view that as intentional, they were horrifying frankenstein-like dinosaurs anyway, what with the frog DNA. I figure that when the INGEN execs saw the first raptor they complained about the size, feathers, and a bunch of other stuff, so the scientists had to mess around until they got them "right". (I.e. marketable to children)

>>40515662I remember reading a book by Robert T Bakker the paleontologist who worked with the crew on JP and was quite annoyed that they made Volociraptor huge and he said when Utahraptor was discovered a friend of his called him and said "they found Spielberg's raptor."

>>40513991>The party, having just had their clothes dyed a bright purple colour to be proper for the nobleman's ball, come across a velociraptor mating ceremony.>They appreciate the colour of your clothing. The alpha male turns to the party and makes a loud mating call dick in hand.

>>40513905As others have said, tigers. All the proof you need for brightly colored predators.

>>40516079I've run a game in a homebrew setting where kobolds were feathered raptor people. There was a running joke about having to shoo them out of attics, because they'd explore every square inch of an area that they could.

Not as bad as kender, though. They didn't steal shit, they just got everywhere. Fun times.

>>40513905Velociraptor is the genus, not the species, the ones you are talking about are V. mongoliensis, there is a slightly larger one called V. osmolskae. While the ones in popular depiction are not Velociraptors, they were real animals, probably Deinonychus antirrhopus, or Utahraptor ostrommaysorum , all members of the Dromaeosauridae family.

>>40516504>As others have said, tigers. All the proof you need for brightly colored predators.Doesn't really count since their coloration helps them blend in, though. I think OP's looking for "red, purple and yellow in the middle of an ocean of green".

>>40515281>>40514005Jurassic Park (the movie) was actually made before the Utahraptor was discovered. It's just a happy coincidence that there ended up being a dinosaur the same size as their jumbo raptors.

>>40513905Velociraptors (along with raptors in general, including today), have claws at the correct bend to efficiently hook around tree branches. It's hypothesized that they would have ambushed prey from above, using that big claw to hold tight while they ripped off meaty hunks as their prey struggled to get them off. Generally that means the raptors would almost certainly attack only small-ish animals, since larger ones would simply roll over. I'd go with Utah Raptors or something appropriately large to attack humans.

This kind of shit is why hard science fiction is a trap. It just becomes silly and outdated in ten years, and that's assuming you get everything right and it's not silly and outdated already at its conception.

>>40517350>Steve Irwin Ranger>Won't hurt animals and won't allow his allies to hurt them either.>Uses Handle Animal so well he can take down and control any beast>Is fine with killing humanoids, who he thinks actually deserve to be killed>He prefers to wrestle his opponents into submission

>>40518135the gobi barely has any life in it today, if anything, conditions in that desert would have been even more extreme given that most continent interiors were deserts and the coastal regions were jungles. Why would they have major predators like raptors inside of it then?

The first book says that the original cloned Velociraptors were too small and fast, making it easier for them to hide and harder for the guests to see, so they kept working with different splices until they had a larger, more impressive Velociraptor.

>>40518196>Why would they have major predators like raptors inside of it then?Because that's were all the Velociraptor fossils have been found, in the Djadokhta formation, the dryest preserved habitat of ancient Gobi, and nowhere else. Deserts aren't necessarily lifeless, they can have vegetation, water and oases. The Gobi's most common herbivore was Protoceratops, the population of which was so large that hundreds of fossils have been found. Even the modern Gobi is home to 600 different plant species.

>>40513988And yet, if you're trapped in a room with a spinosaurus, the best course of action is to nip its legs until it falls over- the spine is directly connected to the vertebrae and it's suspected this is one of the reasons they died out, small mammals felling them.

>>40513905yup. Often only one gender's brightly coloured. That's the decoy. The players all get +5 to their spot checks to see that one. They never see the ones with the camouflaged plumage, they're not even looking for it.

Then the wings help them keep their balance while they're basically tearing at their prey with their feet.